


In the Mirror - Part Two

by Lilysmum



Category: The Killing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 19:29:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4534449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilysmum/pseuds/Lilysmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are some missing scenes from Season Two Episode 13 - Holder's been impacted by the act of shooting Jamie and is in need of some company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Mirror - Part Two

 

What does it take to be a killer?

 

Holder’s studied that stuff, psychology and criminology, but it still comes down to what he always knew, before he went to school, before he was a cop. Circumstances. That’s all. A situation, on the outside, and a driving force on the inside. Desperation. Greed. Fear. Jealousy. Revenge. Take your pick.

 

Belko. Terry. Jamie. Himself. Killers, all.

 

Dead, or as good as too, all of them.  All of them except for him.

 

He’s the hero, driving around in his car, wondering what the fuck a person is supposed to do now.

 

Nobody tells you this part.

 

Who would have thought that man-child Belko would be capable. Or the sad girl, Terry Marek. What about that weakling Jamie Wright – likely ineffective his whole life, finally accomplishing something, pulling off such savagery, at last. Who would have ever imagined them as killers? Likely no one.

 

But him? He’s a different story. There had always been something inside of him.

 

It was one of the things that he thought would make him a good cop, the fact that all his life he had been able to think like a criminal.  But he also has a fucking terrible temper. He’s dangerous.  There are people who won’t be at all surprised when they hear that he’s taken a life.

  

He’s the one who thought it would never come to that, ever. He’s the one in a state of shock.

 

It was the awareness that he had it in him that made him sure he never would. He’d never tried to prepare himself for, or even imagine, how it would feel. It always seemed too much like tempting fate.

 

He isn’t second-guessing himself, that’s not it. He’s not beating himself up because Jamie’s gun was unloaded, either, wishing he could take it back.  It’s a simple equation, a part of his job, and he’d carried it out correctly. A plus B equals C. Boom. Dead man on the carpet. A good shooting, Carlson had called it when he told him that the results of the early investigation look fine. He’ll be cleared of any wrongdoing.

 

But where he is now, this is where he never expected to be. He’s felt this before, many times, just never to this degree. The feeling of having crossed a line and never being able to cross back. Hell, he’s the king of crossing lines. But he’s never crossed one that made him feel like this. He’s in a new place now, a place that he can never leave. This is the day when everything changed. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world.

 

He knows what he’s in for now.  It’s a big fucking deal anytime a cop’s service weapon is discharged, and when someone is killed the process takes on a life of its own. He’ll have to meet with police and civilian investigators, union reps and lawyers. He and everybody else at the scene will have to tell the story again and again.

 

But that’s not even the worst part. The worst of it will be seeing the shrinks and the psychologists. He’ll have to answer their questions, submit to their ‘assessment tools’, play their game.  He’ll have to prep himself, decide how much to reveal. They’ll be the ones who get to decide if he’s okay.

 

Tell me your thoughts on this Stephen.

 

Can you rate that feeling on a scale of one to ten?

 

How’s your sleep? Having any dreams yet?

 

Ever have any thoughts of harming yourself?

 

Fuck off. He hates that shit.

 

But that’s not happening now. Not tonight. And he’s glad, because he just couldn’t. Luckily the department counsellor deemed him okay for now, okay enough to go home and get some rest anyway. Carlson let them out to go speak to the Larsens but then there was all the drama with Terry and the next thing he knew he was rassling the father and it seemed like this fucking thing would never end. And after all of that he had to wait around to be issued a new service weapon, his had been taken as evidence, and Carlson had insisted he not leave the station unarmed. The guy was clucking around like a mother hen, all proud and protective, shaking his hand, calling him ‘son’. Christ he’d even had uniformed officers drive Holder back to his car where it was still parked at City Hall.

 

Finally getting in his car and shutting the door felt like an escape, a huge relief, and it was. He needed badly to get away.  He doesn’t want to talk, and there is only one person he wants to see now. Not even wants, it’s gone way past want.  Needs.

 

 

Linden had stayed at the station, watching the video. He gets it that she isn’t done yet, she needs to get all cosy with the Rosie, one more time. And he knows the girl was just an innocent kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and yeah he feels like puking when he thinks about what happened to her but damn he knew he couldn’t sit there and watch that video. He’s not blaming the girl, but the price of that thing was too damned high.

 

“Go,” Linden had said, squeezing his hand when he told her he was finally cleared to leave, “I won’t be long. Can I meet you at your place?”

 

Her interviews were finished and she had, not surprisingly, managed to stay in work-mode. But him?  He’d had it.

 

Knock yourself out, Detective, he told her silently, and sighed, nodding numbly as he left her in the darkened room. I can wait.

 

 

He thought he needed a bit of space, to get his shit together, but it’s not working out very well. Space is the last thing he needs right now, it turns out. He feels like he should be in a padded room. Or a prison cell maybe, or at least in handcuffs. He needs something to hold him down.

 

He’s getting sick. Sick and afraid.

 

He has to shake it.  He wants to be okay when Linden shows up later, and she will, he knows. Whenever she finishes what it is she needs to do she’ll come see about him.  And she will likely need seeing to herself, he reckons, eventually.

 

He drives aimlessly through the grey city until he can’t anymore. Then he goes home, and stands in the shower until he can’t do that anymore either. When he comes out he looks out the window at the rain and prays a little for Jamie Wright. That maybe there will be something for him now, wherever he is.  Or if he gets to come back, maybe his next life won’t be a total waste. Maybe the little shit will have learned something during his time on earth.

 

He sits on his couch, then, resting his elbows on his knees as he smokes, and stares.  At nothing.

 

He is going to carry this thing now, alone, forever. It’s who he has become.  He thinks that in a way he is just like Terry, he’s in prison.  He has the feeling that he will never see another person, never talk to another person, ever again in his life. Maybe he will never feel anything, again, ever, it will all just pass right through him. Everything he sees, everything he thinks, is dull and colourless, and he feels that way himself, he is as thin and grey as a ghost.

 

He can’t escape it anymore, it’s coming for him. The emptiness. The separateness.

 

He needs to see her, he has to see her.  He has to know that she is there. It almost overpowers him and his hand shakes when he lights another cigarette. He knows it is only inches away.

 

This is the weakness that he hates.

 

Come on Linden, he prays silently, come on.

 

 

She knocks once and then walks in through the unlocked door.  She calls his name softly and looks left and right, then stops mid-word when she sees him there, standing to meet her. She gives him just the smallest glance, the tiniest smile, toeing off her shoes. Her arms are full of shopping bags and he tries to take them from her but she blows right by him into the kitchen, starts unloading stuff onto the counter.

 

Plastic bags, he can see the outlines of what’s inside them, a bottle of hooch, a carton of juice, cigarettes, other stuff as well. He can smell grease and salt, feels his stomach cramp up, she brought dinner too.

 

Linden turns to look at him quickly over her shoulder, and he’s standing close enough now to see that her eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot.

 

“You okay, Holder?” she asks him and goes back to fussing with her provisions, pulling stuff from the bags, opening cupboard doors, looking.

 

“I am now,” he tells her, and the sound of his own voice startles him. He steps up behind her, opens the overhead cabinet and takes out two glasses, places them next to the bottle.

 

“Are you?” he asks her.

 

Linden nods quickly without turning around and he watches her, stunned, looking at her from the back, staring at her sweater and her jeans and her ponytail swaying slightly as she moves.

 

That’s when he gets a vision of the body bag they’d put Jamie Wright into. They’re thick and black, those crime-scene bags, heavy duty so as not to leak fluids. They’re noisy, too, when they crease or bend, thick, tough plastic. And the sound of the zipper when they seal them up, it’s so loud, it’s the ultimate final fucking sound, if you ask him.  It would be so dark inside. It would be like being buried.

 

That’s when it really hits him physically, what could have happened. What _didn’t_ happen. His shaking starts on the inside, moving quickly up through his core, then out and down through his shoulders and into his arms.  He can’t feel his hands.

 

He watches Linden pour the two shots, and he keeps watching as _her_ hands start to shake as if by osmosis.  She sets the bottle down quickly to avoid dropping it and grabs onto the counter top with both hands and freezes, white knuckling, holding onto the edge.

 

He has to touch her, he can’t wait anymore. Finally able to reach out, he takes hold of her just as she starts to turn around.

 

“Holder…” she says, or tries to, her voice catches in her throat and he sees her eyes fill. She gives up trying to speak with a shake of her head and she grabs onto him, clamping her arms around him.  He flinches involuntarily and steps back, cursing his injured body.

 

“Shit,” Linden whispers, grimacing, “I’m sorry…”

 

He shakes his head and looks down at himself, tells her it’s okay, but that’s when he loses it too, his eyes are flooding and he can’t draw a breath.

 

“Just let me…” Linden whispers.

 

Her eyes meet his as she backs up towards the counter and then reaching back she hoists herself up to sit on the edge.  She reaches out to him again, motions for him to step closer, and oh god she knows, she knows what he needs and enfolds him, in her wool and her denim, in her arms and her legs. She is combing her fingers through his hair, pressing her mouth to his forehead, his cheeks, saying Holder, Holder. Her tears on his face anoint him, and her lips on his breathe life back into his dying lungs. His heart starts hammering then and he sucks in huge gulps of air which hurt like crazy but at least he knows that he is there, he’s real and he’s alive and more important than that, so is she.  He knows he is holding on to her too tight and he hopes he is not hurting her but he just needs to feel and he does, he feels flesh, and bones, and skin and hair and teeth and lips.

 

 

Owing to the cracked ribs he has two positions only, flat on his back and upright. He can’t move much but what he lacks in mobility is more than made up for with stamina, he has stamina to burn. It is after four am and they’re still at it.

 

Stamina along with _stellar_ recovery time, he notes.  Also there is nothing wrong with his arms, he can hold her ass in his two hands forever, she weighs nothing, he can keep her anywhere she wants for however long, until she is sighing and cursing and gasping when it’s enough.

 

Except it’s not enough, it’s never enough, no matter what they do. That seems to be a concept neither of them understands, tonight. It ain’t just him, no sir, that can’t get enough, that can’t stop. He actually does fall asleep a couple of times but Linden wakes him, she’s busy, with her insistent mouth and her determined hands, and even if she just puts her skin against his, he’s back in the here and now in seconds.  He can’t believe that she still wants to but she does, she wants him, she’s faking nothing.

 

He knows chicks dig scars but he never thought she’d get off on his bruises, her fingers and lips slide over them like silk. He doesn’t know if she is worshipping them, or trying to erase them, or what, but he doesn’t give a shit, it was worth it, getting them.

 

It’s awhile since he has done anything remotely like this, since back in his drugging days.  But even back then it wasn’t like this.  It was never with anybody that mattered and afterwards he wouldn’t even remember much, his body had been just a dumb animal driven by a poisoned whip, used, abused, unable to stop.

 

Not like this at all. This is for real. He’s not missing anything, as depleted as he is he knows he will never forget any of it.  It goes on and on, it feels like it will never end. Lust, he thinks to himself during a brief moment of inactivity, this must be lust. So this is what it feels like.  Maybe there’s a pinch of greed, too, wanting it all, wanting everything, wanting so much all at once.  Gluttony too, he figures, overindulgence, taking more when you know you should have had enough.  Who knew deadly sins would bring him back to life.

 

But this is the last time, he knows, this has to be it. He has absolutely nothing left. The last time he came it took forever, and it was actually painful, he saw stars. He figures if his skin is this raw then hers must be worse. There is no part of his body that is not hurting, now, the pain through his whole torso radiates everywhere, his legs are cramping and his knees are shot and his back is killing him. He actually wonders if he will ever be able to walk again. He thinks of those huge fish, the salmon, the ones that fight and swim against the current to get to the place where they’re supposed to be, so they can dump their last load before they tank, belly up, and die.

 

 

It’s Linden that spots them this time, and breathes in his ear, his busted up ear, for him to look in the mirror.  He’s got one on the wall opposite that he’d almost forgotten was there.

 

Holder raises his head and looks up, and yeah there they are again, in the mirror. Owing to their placement on the bed they are framed within it, not perfectly but well enough, well enough to look like an actual work of art, a real live flesh and blood sculpture. He will never ever forget what he sees.

 

She’d had hold of the headboard initially but he’d had to sit back, on his knees, due to pain. He’d pulled her back with him, kneeling between his legs and that’s how he’s holding her now.  He has one arm around under her breasts and his other hand down there, he’s hard enough and deep inside her but he isn’t planning to try to finish this time, he’s done. Linden though, from the looks of things, she still can.  She’s got one hand down in there too and has reached up and back with her other one, back behind his head, holding on.  Her head is up against his shoulder, she’d been twisting at the waist, trying to reach back to kiss him when she’d noticed them, their reflections framed in his cheap Ikea mirror but looking for all the world like somebody’s masterpiece. It’s still pretty dark and he can only see outlines, but it’s enough. He can’t look away.

 

His bruises are spectacular, like Hollywood makeup, his tats inky black. Linden’s hair is everywhere, dark and golden at the same time in the faint light.  He can see all the movement, his thigh muscles, his ass, his back and arms. Her breasts are upturned as she stretches, seeking, and he has to move to touch them, he can’t leave them unattended. He watches her, she’s watching the two of them intently, she’s seeing it too.  When his eyes lock on hers he can’t believe what he sees, it’s himself, reflected back, through her eyes.

  

He can’t really think let alone speak but he tries, there is something he needs to say but doesn’t know what it is, exactly. What comes out of his mouth is just her name but it’s her real name, _Sarah_ , and it’s his real voice, and it’s enough.  Linden graces him for a moment with a smile, and he decides not waste his energy trying to talk. What he sees says everything.  He can’t stop staring, looking, watching every second. That’s no video, that’s no random sex tape.  That’s him, in the mirror, with Linden, it ain’t nobody else. It all makes sense, and it’s so simple, how is it he never understood it until now.  They’ve been on this collision course since day one. 

 

His pain goes then, miraculously, completely. All of a sudden he is perfect. He could slay the dragon. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound, all of that shit. But he doesn’t bother. What he does is fuck his partner the way that he needs to. For one more time, he doesn’t care if he dies doing it. He knows now this is what they’ve had coming to them all along.

 

He can tell by her face she is close, he knows her now, he knows her body almost like he knows his own.  Its craziness - he can’t tell where his flesh ends and hers begins, he doesn’t know whose fingers are whose. There’s that little edge of desperation in her voice, she’s running her words together, saying his name, Holder, and oh god Holder, telling him things, she doesn’t stop. Its part descriptive and part directive until she is asking him if he can “feel _that_ ”.  And yes he can feel it, and he watches as she reaches back with both her arms now, and she makes it perfect, sliding her back up against his chest, stretching her body up, up. He feels her fingernails bite into the back of his shoulders and despite what he thought a minute ago she is pulling him off the cliff with her again, out into the air. He keeps his eyes open as long as he can, watching until he can’t anymore.

 

 

They are a sticky mass of arms and legs and hair and skin and sheets.  Linden is asleep, really asleep, finally, curled on her side with her head on his outstretched arm, her spine pressed lightly against his side.

 

Holder stares alternately at the ceiling and at her, he can’t move, from pain and exhaustion and also from knowing better than to disturb perfection.

 

It’s starting to get light. In the soft grey air he watches the outline of her shoulder, sees it rise and fall as she breathes. As the daylight creeps in by inches, he studies her skin as the freckles appear, like stars in the night sky showing themselves, one by one.  He imagines counting them, and finding the constellations, and knowing something no one else on earth will ever know.

 

It’s a feeling he has never felt before, and he has no name for it. It’s a sense of deep quiet, of profound stillness. He would like to call it peace but he can’t, quite.

  

Because there’s something else there too, a dark ribbon that runs through it. It turns circles in his mind, like a snake chasing its own tail. He wants desperately to understand what has happened, if this is just some random convergence or part of something larger.  He would have sworn the latter, earlier.  But now he’s not sure.  He’s afraid to move, afraid to touch her, afraid of upsetting the order of the universe.

 

He feels by turns like nothing, like a speck, but then also like superman, a hundred feet tall. He has done the right things. He has been strong enough and smart enough and brave enough, today.

 

At last he bends his arm and feels around until he finds her hand. He curls her lax fingers around his own and holds them. He tells himself that he is never letting go. That’s the plan anyway.

 

Their image is there when he closes his eyes, burned into his retinas. Part of him believes that he has just been given a glimpse into the future. He should be happy and he is, but he also cannot escape the feeling that it could all disappear like a puff of smoke.

 

What he feels as he finally passes out doesn’t feel like a beginning.

 

 

So yeah it’s the next day, the _very next day_ , when she makes him drive away from her and leave her in that alleyway by herself.

 

He could argue and he knows he could make sense. But he doesn’t. What he does is drive around the corner and park the car and light a cigarette. He sits there and he feels sorry for himself, for both of them, for the time it takes to smoke the thing. Then he rolls down his window and tosses the butt into a puddle.

 

He starts the car and drives back into his “life”.

 

 

His heart aches but it is not broken. There is no drama. No crying, no punching of walls, no going off the rails.  He’s okay.

  

Linden can go and do her thing, whatever it’s going to be this time.  Despite her sad little nod and smile he knows that she will not keep in touch. That’s alright too. That was the first time he truly believed it, looking at her face when she got out of his car, that there will be more to their story.

 

It was there in her eyes, what he saw before, it was there and it’s always going to be there.

 

This just ain’t their time yet, is all. But their time will come around again. They’re not done. He knows it like he knows his own name.

  

So he is assigned a new partner. He finds out he is a good detective, he’s a _very_ good detective. He gets better haircuts, starts wearing a suit, quits smoking, dates a lawyer.

 

It’s all fine. Because he knows what he saw in the mirror, and he knows Linden saw it too.  So it’s like he told her silently, before.

 

He can wait.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Once again thanks to glowcult for the thoughtful insights...


End file.
